The white spiralling dance perforates levels in the dervish’s awareness, enabling him to attain divinity. The runner propels his body forward in a monotonous rhythm to attain the second breath where levitation awaits. The calligrapher imbues the symbol not only with explicit meaning but also with the character of the word image; its body and nature.

When I regard the fine mesh of dots, like a part of a net draped across an ocean, in one of Maria Hall’s works, or the loops of small black spots across blank sheets of paper, photographs, texts about ships, I believe this is exactly what she is doing when she, over and over again, makes her 852 marks.

To consciously focus on something in order to uncover what happens when you repeat the same movement again and again, creating a special mental state. What is created is not merely an interpretation of a perception, no matter how close it is to the original; it is about being part of the act of creating.

Death permeates the survivors, filling them with a loss that is intangible yet massively heavy. Longing and sorrow are not tranquil, but rather a battle between times, and what separates them is the events that cannot be undone.

Every dot in the pattern is of equal value, but the circle, square or winding map line tell us that one cannot depict life in the sense of encompassing its meaning. And manifold death, which can hardly be fathomed, recalls to us our own losses. They are brought back once more. Remembrance – that is what links us to each other.